Ben Folds Causes Ditzery

It's no mystery that I love food. I love eating it, gourmet and junk-varieties alike. (And everything in between. Except bananas. Sick.) I love talking about it. I love thinking about it, unless I'm starving.

So it's no surprise that my first several "let's try new things" challenges were food related.

Another StumbleUpon discovery, my next adventure was caramel walnut brownies.

Ingredients

1 package (ha, I said package) chocolate cake mix

1 cup chopped nuts (Optional, but oh-so-delicious. I used walnuts.)

1 cup evaporated milk (I think this is one of those mini cans that are just friggin' cute)

1 stick or 1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted

35 (10 oz package) caramels, unwrapped ... time-consuming, but whatevs

2 cups (12 oz package) semi-sweet chocolate morsels

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Just do it.

2. Combine cake mix and nuts in a large bowl. Stir in 2/3 cup evaporated milk and butter. (The batter will be thick. Not to be confused with Alan Thicke.) Spread half of the batter into ungreased 9x13 baking pan and bake for 15 minutes.

3. Heat caramels and remaining evaporated milk in a small saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly, until caramels are melted. Sprinkle chocolate morsels over brownie and then drizzle the caramel mixture over.

4. Drop remaining batter by heaping teaspoon over mixture ... no method to this, just plop it randomly.

5. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until center is set.

6. Cool in pan on wire rack.

Ok so these managed to be ooey, gooey deliciousness, and I even mucked the recipe up like whoa. My first mistake came when I was jamming out to some Ben Folds, and I accidentally put too much condensed milk in the batter, which made for less leftover for the caramel. Second came right after, also during the Ben Folds karaoke session, when I forgot to put the butter in all-together. (What I'm trying to say here is that Ben Folds is at fault for my ditzery. Yeah, made up word.) Since the batter is split in half, I did remember my butter sins, cut the amount in half and added it to the remaining batter. Because there wasn't as much butter as the recipe called for, I called them half-cal brownies. Which is a bit deceiving but half true so I'm going with it. They were still really tasty, but I can only imagine how much yum would commence with all the calories in their rightful place.

Let's file this new experience as completed on the week of October 18th.